Louis Theroux to return to interviewing Israeli settlers living in West Bank
By Charlotte McLaughlin, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
Louis Theroux will return to the Palestinian West Bank to meet Israeli settlers, and give an “insight into tribalism and the ways in which we can blind ourselves to the humanity of those around us”.
The British documentarian, 54, previously fronted the 2010 documentary Ultra Zionists for the BBC about settlers living in the contested territory.
The corporation is making the new show Louis Theroux: The Settlers, which will see him talking to settlers following the Israel-Hamas war.
Theroux said: “In 2010, I made a programme called The Ultra-Zionists that looked at the extreme end of the Israeli settler community in the West Bank.
“Since then, those same extreme settlers are even more emboldened.
“I’m interested in ideologues and fundamentalists of all stripes. In going back to the West Bank, I wanted to see settler expansionism up close, and the human cost it entails.
“It’s a story specific to a time and a place and a region, but it’s also a universal insight into tribalism and the ways in which we can blind ourselves to the humanity of those around us.”
In this new documentary, Theroux will embed himself in the West Bank along with travelling throughout the area to learn more.
The BBC said he will also “discover” that the settlers “are already making plans to move into” the Gaza strip, where the fighting has seen more than 47,000 Palestinians killed.
Clare Sillery, head of commissioning at BBC Documentaries, said: “After more than 25 years of documentary making, Louis Theroux’s appetite for tackling difficult and complex subject matters remains completely undiminished.
“I look forward to him bringing his humanity and curiosity to this most challenging and timely of stories.”
The show is made by Theroux’s London-based production company Mindhouse production for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
The 15-months of fighting between the militant group Hamas, a proscribed terrorist group in the UK, and Israeli forces is currently paused, as a tenuous ceasefire deal is negotiated.
Violence has also surged in the West Bank throughout the war and there has recently been further outbreaks of clashes with an Israeli military operation in the north of the territory.
Israeli hostages captured during its attack on October 7 2023 are being released by Hamas in exchange for a pause in fighting, freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a flood of humanitarian aid to war-battered Gaza.